December Welcome

In my last post I mentioned altering a grad dress. Here's the gorgeous girl who received lots of compliments. She had a wonderful time and holiday at the beach. Now she is waiting for her school results.

Yikes, December is nearly half way through. I have experienced and coped well ( with a few zzzzz's) during my very first 2 night shifts at work. It was very considerate of people to stay away from the hospital on Friday night but they kind of made up for that Sat night. I always did find that Sat night on call was very busy.

I managed to do some photocopying of some quilting designs that I had previously drawn up and in my breaks wrote out some christmas cards etc.

I did manage to catch up a lot of work leftover from the day shifts due to the ever present computer system slowness.

Unfortunately not much sewing has happened. I have finished the 5 foundation patterns for the poppies pattern. I now have to do the applique and I have not taken a photo of them yet.

I had some bad news on my car today. A second wheel was damaged when I was forced off to the edge of the road so now I have decided to get 4 new alloy wheels ( not genuine VW) though.

I will definately be following up my claim to the Main Roads Dept through my local parliamentary member. The road is still unrepaired. A mob of lazy people if you ask me.

Hope to be doing some more sewing in the next few days. I finished a lot of Christmas shopping today. I have also spent time at the other farm where I am trying to remove the last vestiges of paint from the verandah posts so I can of course cover them up again.

Monthly Report

Yes I know I'm a bit late for the beginning of the month. How do you deal with some quiet moments? I'm beginning to think my upcoming forced venture into night shifts might give me some of those. Hopefully there are not too many dramas every night in the early hours of the morning at the hospital when I will be trying to stay awake and I may catch a few moments of being idle.

The past few weeks have been fun with patchwork and quilting. The M t Perry and Mundubbera girls enjoyed being guinea pigs for our strips n curves workshop. We did a bit of fabric dyeing along the way. Had a sleepover and pub tea on the Sat night and ing eneral had a busy weekend. I went to work to recover. The photo is of Trish's handiwork. She was the first one to get hers sewn together. Still needs a border treatment yet.

I have also been playing with a foundation pattern called congregation of Poppies from QNM .

I have started the second one today. It sure is exciting starting something new and a bit different to what I have been playing with for the last few years.

I am also constructing a workshop using the 60 degree ruler. Probably have a one block wonder plus my triangular log cabin plus these.

Am not sure which colour scheme to use yet.

Here is a close up of the free motion quilting feathers I did on zinnia fizz. I used Glide thread . That centre square is 2' in size.

Do you think I should feel like I have been busy???? I have also nearly finished all of the requirements lists and procedure sheets for Jan 2010. I'm off to alter a graduation dress. That is one thing I would really like to be able to sew well. Formal clothes, I reckon you could do well doing that type of sewing. Quilts are more fun though because you get at least 3 different stages of sewing work from one of them. See you next month.

Workshops

More workshops are in the planning stage. We are having an overnight retreat in Mt Perry soon. We will be doing the strips and curves pattern by Louisa Smith. I have made a poppies quilt and a hand dyed version in pinks and purples as class samples. The photo shows the pattern pieces quite well in the hand dyed fabric.

The girls are all having fun collecting their fabrics. We will be dyeing some fabric over the weekend as well. It certainly seems full steam along. This is a practice session for my workshop at Yeppoon in 2010.

I have finished quilting the Citrus Fizz quilt from this years Yeppoon workshop. I used Glide polyester thread available from Fil-Tec in USA and found this to be a wonderful polyester thread to use. I have even stocked up supplies of this thread as the dollar keeps rising. I can get 5 times the amount of a better quality thread for the same price as a less superior thread including the high postage cost. It really is amazing what you can learn and source via the internet. I have also sourced another book ( yes I know I vowed to declutter) which has some wonderful ideas for leftover strata from strips and curves. That is for a future project.

August Endings

Spring is nearly here and the cleaning has been happening at my house. I have been sorting through years of accumulated junk and culling out stuff. I have 4 boxes of fabric and magazines to be looked through by other quilters next patchwork day. Some of the magazines will probably find a new home at our new venue.

3 car trips to the dump in 5 days is a pretty good achievement for this hoarder.

If we end up shifting house I want to be able to just pack everything without sitting there thinking do I really need this item anymore. The problem is I still have 4 storage areas of the house to sift through.

I can't believe how organised I am as I have all current projects stored where I know exactly where they are. I am working on a small art quilt for an art exhibition competition in October so no pics of that.

I have also got things prepared for QCWA in January. It is just a case of waiting for the weeks to go by until school is finished for the youngest before I can really move.

 

Monthly Report

Well, I'm back again for a short visit. I have been methodically basting and preparing my workshop quilts for quilting. I have managed to finish the quilting on 2 of them. Wow!.

Things are certainly getting stressful on the home front. Looks like we might be moving house to the other farm 200 kms away, but it depends on how negoitations proceed with the the other party involved. It would be good if the youngest child could finish her school education without the trauma of suddenly shifting house though. Plans are in hand for her to finish at her current school though.

I have also started planning the next Yeppoon Workshop for January 2010. I'm envious that the convenor has bought herself a machine quilting frame. I hope to visit her place for a few fun filled days when we get sorted out here.

The photo above is from a wokshop on twisted log cabin from a while ago. I had unsuitable fabrics according to the tutor so ended up reversing every second block. I must try to take better photoes. The lighting seems to be washing out the quilt.

Wow!! Is she really back?

Yes I'm here. I have been to Brisbane twice in the last 6 weeks. The QCWA dyeing workshop was very enjoyable. Hope you all like your fabrics . The Textile Fair was very inspiring and also a bit deflating. I managed to use the plastic for some purchases but not too much.

I went back to Brisbane for a parent's medical appointment and went clothes shopping.

I have also been working as usual. Spent a night at Cania Gorge and went rock hopping.

I have actually basted one quilt of my contemporary table runners workshop series ready to be quilted. I have also finished dyeing the backings for quite a few more so hope to drag out the quilt sewing machine to quilt them. My dreams of a long arm still persist but other financial decisions regarding our future lives must come first.

I also managed to re photograph some of my quilts last week.

Here is a new photo of a favourite small quilt from my connector series.

Back Again Stranger

Looks like it's time to check in again. Lots has been happening in my world. Some sewing , some work and lots of family things. Some days are spent sewing and walking the dogs etc. Other days are frantic getting from place to place and meeting deadlines. The new car is now not so new( 7 months) and has clocked up 15000 kms averaging 4.7 litres diesel per 100 km so I am pretty pleased about that. Mind you I have not taken a photo of it yet. My camera is back from its trip to Sydney and Monto. I had resurrected another camera in the family and purchased a card reader. It certainly makes dealing with digital photos easier. Editing them is now on the learning curve agenda soon with photoshop when time permits.

I have sewn 2 kaleidoscope quilts and have been dyeing backings for my workshop quilts. I am off to Brisbane soon to teach another dyeing workshop. Then onto the Textile Festival at Southbank.

The photo above is a section of where I would like to explore next in my quilting world. A step on from strip insertion. First though I have to finish my kaleidoscopes. Now that my camera is back I plan to rephotograph all of my quilts as I thought I had saved a copy of that file to disc before my computer was reformatted in November but never did. I was talking to another quilter and she is wondering why do we lurch from one deadline to the next???? Are we the type of people that always have to be busy.

Report of the Month

Well it looks like blogging is getting to be a monthly occurrence. I have been doing extra shifts for work so spare time has been limited. I have sewed 3 items from fabric purchased from our Toowoomba shopping trip. One is the quilt from bright large prints which I think I might try meander quilting then feathers on. I purchased a book from Suzanne Earley which looks very interesting. Oh for the uninterrupted time to start the project. I also finished an Amy Butler apron and oven mitts from the scraps. Am about to finish a Moonshine bag when I finally find a large button in my sewing containers somewhere.

I am looking forward to a day tomorrow when I can get past the housework, accounting work (BAS time again in Australia) and clear the cutting table and start slicing a second kaleidoscope quilt. I purchased the fabric in Kingaroy on our way home from Toowoomba. Then I may have set a record and actually used all of my purchases from a shopping trip.

I went to Brisbane for my father's medical appointment on Thursday and have never driven on a major highway in such torrential rain and I have to wonder about the driving sense of some people. I was glad to be driving away from the rain and not towards it. Noosa had something like 2o + inches in 5 hours. We arrived home to find once again we had missed out.

The photo of the quilt is of my Moonflowers quilt made a few years ago now. It is foundation pieced and machine quilted.

Sewing At Last

I went along to our Mt Perry patchwork day on February 18th before leaving early for another trip to Bundaberg and did the real patching. I mended work clothes so I could indulge in some creative sewing without feeling guilty. Why do semi professionals and non professionals feel that creative sewing is laden with guilt feelings?
I purchased a quilt kit of modern large prints on our shopping trip to Toowoomba in January and I 'm pleased to say I have it cut and sewed except for the final rows and borders. I wanted to try using these prints but I can honestly say that I still prefer my hand dyed fabrics for their colours. I will show a photo when it is completed. I'm also dreaming about a special wall hanging for someone who is approaching 50 yrs of age in August.
After just completing 3 nights of stressful laboratory work I'm in great need of a good rest and some sewing time.

February Notes

Aagh!!! February is nearly as bad as January and the rest of last year for achieving much sewing wise. I seem to have all of these things I'd like to do and something else impinges on my "spare time" preventing me from sewing.

The workshop went well and I hope I have inspired some ladies to break out of their traditional comfort zone and try some new techniques. I have literally done no creative sewing since. I went to my patchwork day last week and did the clothes patching for the 2 men in my life. Now that my son is the same size as his father , they wear each others work clothes and fight over the newer items. The mending pile had been growing so to ease my conscience I decided to do that job, so next week I hope for some creative sewing.

The quilt pictured is one I made 12 years ago using a bias strip applique method.

I have also been asked to pick up one extra shift for work each week during March. That might help with the car payments but cuts my recreation time. Oh for a good balance of things in life.

January Notes

This photo is Hot Green Mosiac, a quilt using all hand dyed fabric in geens. I had lots of greens left over from another class kits so I have used them up here. It is not quilted yet.
This class is for traditional quilters starting to work in a contemporary manner.
The QCWA class is nearly here. I have finally prepared all my sewing pieces and patterns that I have time for. I have also dyed 15m homespun for participants to purchase to augment their own supplies.


As always I have a few people who cannot understand their requirements. Mind you I left out two small letters OR in the list and that meant a huge difference to some people.





Never mind. All I have to do now is print patterns after PDF conversion and I will load them all onto a CD for purchase as they will only use 1 per session that is included in their class fee.
I wish the days would slow a bit.